A Potent Means in the Analysis of Gender Relations - Essay Example

1 PATRIARCHY: A POTENT MEANS IN THE ANALYSIS OF GENDER RELATIONS The concept of Patriarchy is definitely useful in the analysis of gender relations. For almost a century, the civilised world has been rocked by a ‘cold war’ that sometimes boil over with intensity of emotions. The protagonists: the women libbers who desire liberation from bonds that oppress them for centuries and the macho men who would stop at nothing to retain all the advantages and perks which had been transmitted to them from the days of the patriarchy. This Patriarchy is defined as “literally the rule by the father but generally it refers to a social situation, where men are dominant over women in wealth status” (Drislane 2005,p.76 )and in other aspects . This ‘battle of the sexes’ is not yet over despite the fact women have already made great strides in almost all areas of endeavour i.e. politics, sports, economy. In fact, women have permeated into areas once the exclusive domain of males. But still, they’re shrugged off as but a small minority. Thus, in so many societies the stereotype ‘woman in the home’ or the ‘childbearing female’ still persist. To many men, it’s still a man’s world. And rightly so, most tycoons are men; majority of presidents and prime ministers and mayors are men; priests, rabbis and imams are all men; most managers and heads of universities and colleges are men and practically most societies are headed by men. And this is so because patriarchy had been institutionalised and usage and accession to it by all parties since time immemorial had made it a social construct. Woman’s lot as the inferior sex and men’s dominance over women can be traced to the moment of creation. In Genesis 1:27, God “created Adam in His image” (and not her image), thus assigning God the male gender. The creation of Eve was a mere afterthought when God realized that “it is not good for man to be alone and I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 1:23). Then she was fashioned from one of Adam’s ribs, which made him 2 exclaim “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man” (Genesis 1:23). Thus, woman’s bondage to man and the assignation of the natural role of childbearer, homemaker and attendant to man’s every whim and caprice had started. These roles were acutely delineated during the days of the Patriarchs i.e. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David. Patriarchy, in this context, is defined as “a hierarchical social system and way of thinking where fathers or patriarchs rule and which has become a model for every form of domination and subordination” (Clarkson 2000,qbgm.umc.org/umw.gloss.stm) Through oral tradition transmission, woman’s stereotyped role as weaker and passive sex endured for centuries. Since in patriarchy, men set up the rules, they were always stacked in their favor. Thus, King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, King David wantonly fornicated with a married Bathsheba, Abraham slept with his servant Hagar, Jacob married sisters Leah and Rachel in exchange for 14 years of labour, Isaac married Rebekah with gold and silver jewelries as payment. Women, however, were expected to be chaste and were not allowed to stray from their socially constructed roles for fear of being stoned to death. It was also the spirit of patriarchy that moved men to strike out women’s names from the genealogies, which were but an endless enumeration of men’s names thus emphasizing their primacy and women’s non-importance. The political definition of patriarchy succinctly expressed the powers of kings i.e. “Patriarchy is a doctrine wherein political authority is equivalent to divine authority descended from Adam through the kings of Israel to modern kings. Thus it justified the divine right of kings. ..feminists..decry the practice … of giving primacy to fathers and sons..over mothers and daughters” (Filmer 1680, www.constitution.org/eng/patriarcha.stm). 3 The age of royalty transformed the lot of women from worse to worst as royal edicts treated women as chattels or sex objects. Thus, King Xerxes of Persia commanded “a search for beautiful young virgins and bring all these beautiful girls into the harem “(Esther 2:2-3). The ‘Divine Right of Kings’ wherein “power comes directly from God and the monarch has unrestrained, absolute power” (Filmer 1680, www.constitution.org/eng/pat) included the right to make slaves of women and the use of women whichever way he wants. The term used to describe the situation wherein “monarchs viewed the state as his own extended household is Patrimonalism . Traces of patrimonalism linger today as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands stay as part of ‘crown lands’ of the royalty and not part of Great Britain. The ascendancy to the throne of Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria, Cleopatra didn’t alter the destiny of women since these gender relations had been socially constructed by centuries of use and accession and since these queens ascended the throne under dubious circumstances, thus they were afraid to stir the hornet’s nest by tilting the ‘imbalance of power’ against the men who were propping their crowns. Queens Elizabeth and Mary only ascended the throne because Edward VI died without an heir; Catherine the Great’s hold on the crown is at best frail because “she was Prussian and she came to power in a palace coup in which her husband was assassinated” (Cruse and Hoogenboom 2006, p.218). As to Queen Victoria, she was scorned by early suffragettes for her resolute opposition to female suffrage in Britain. But the one who waged an intensified gender war was Cleopatra who removed her co-ruler , her brother and husband and possibly drowned him, from the throne of Egypt. “Deliberately using her charm as an instrument of politics, she induced Caesar …whose mistress she had become “ to proclaim her queen. (Grollier Encyclopedia 2003, p.141). 4 S Since time immemorial women were resigned to their abject condition as extensions of the persona of men. But the French Revolution of 1789 triggered their latent desires to enjoy rights that had been exclusively accorded to men i.e. education, quality of employment, economic independence, religion, political, legal, property and sexual rights and suffrage. The first known spark for women’s struggle for rights and equality was unleashed in 1792 in the book Vindication of the Rights of Women by Englishwoman Mary Wollstonecraft . This spawned a spate of determined and dedicated feminists (such as Britons Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst) who opened the floodgates for more vital legislations beneficial to women . Then New Zealand gave women the right of suffrage in early 1900’s and the struggle shifted to USA in the 1960’s with the Women’s Liberation Movement . The burning of the bra signified women’s desire for total liberation and equality. Steven Goldberg typified men’s anti-feminism stance by claiming that man will always be the dominant sex because men have more of “the hormone testosterone,…hence it is in the natural order of things that they will always monopolize positions of powers, authority and status. Women are suited to be mothers and keep the home fires burning…by using female energies” (Goldberg 1973, p.196). The feminists, fortified by writings of Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millet, fired their first salvo by challenging patriarchy in all its forms as unjust, oppressive and basically flawed. By patriarchy, feminists referred to its modernized definition i.e. “the systematic organization of male supremacy, accompanied by exclusion of women from the public domain of economic power and politics. It is characterized by subordination in the home by means of the sexual and gendered division of labour”. They claimed that patriarchy was for centuries adopted uncritically because there was a need “of settling social conflicts” and society deemed that “male physical strength was the ultimate way of settling this” (Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki). 5 Feminists also accused men of using patriarchy to subjugate and oppress women. Mary Daly wrote “males and males only are the originators, planners, controllers and legitimators of patriarchy” (Daly 1978, p.29). Simone de Beauvoir, on the other hand, opposed the image of “the woman in the home” and claimed it is but “a myth invented by men to confine women to their oppressed state “ (de Beauvoir www.megaessay.com). Katha Pollitt, meanwhile, claimed that men had blamed women for so many things. Rape victims are blamed by men for their horrid experience. “Women are also to blame for the impending collapse of the Anglican Church of England”. Bill Clinton, Dan Quayle and the National Review “accused women of causing poverty” (Pollitt 2001, www.thenation.com/directory/bios/katha-pollitt). The feminists themselves vary their modes of attack. The ones espousing liberal feminism argued that there should be equality between the sexes in all aspects because “all people are created equal” and they “look to the state to bring about women’s liberation through legislative measures and equality through law” (National Action on the Status of Women hussky1.stmarys.ca/evanderveen/wvdu). Socialist feminism, on the other hand, posits that since “women’s oppression is caused by their economic dependence on men “, the notions of gender and class should be abolished. Radical Feminism espouses to “end heterosexual relationships …with men”. This is because central to the “problem is man and his domination of women” . At the heart of women’s activism is the blatant discrimination and exploitation of women by men. The litanies are endless and include sexual and economic exploitation as well as discrimination in the workplace. Walby disclosed a “structural bias in male-dominated institutions which exclude women and also a gender bias in candidate selection” She termed it as “masculinist culture” (1989, p.156). Women are also almost always stereotyped to choose certain careers. Kirkpatrick says that parents and peers “deter women” from taking on careers 6 ‘reserved for men and thus they are “forced to take careers not appropriate for them” . Feminists’ efforts are now concentrated in the “movement against violence to women, against woman-battering, rape, pornography, sexual abuse in the workplace, violence against women in the media and advertising” (Mies 1999, p. 128). To answer the question of why women had allowed themselves to be buried neck-deep in the subjugation, domination and oppression of men, we have to consider that patriarchy in all its forms was institutionalized because women, by their silence, agreed to the situation and followed their assigned roles as the passive and weaker sex to the hilt. When men treated them as chattels, sex objects or even slaves, by meekly acceding to the wishes of their dominators, their “destiny became habitualised” and we say then that patriarchy and women subjugation “became social constructs” (Berger and Luckmann 1967, p.219). Likewise , gender also becomes a social construct when the family, teachers and practically the whole society pressure and stereotype males and females to behave in a certain way that is conventional and traditional and such stereotyping results to “acceptance by both sexes of their roles as well as habitual usage of such roles” (Pinker 2002, p.202). Today, “more than 50 women have been elected heads of state” and many more have occupied important positions (Lewis 2008 ,p.3). In the Norwegian elections of 1985 alone where Gro Harlem Brundtland was reelected as prime minister, women wrested 44% of cabinet positions, 34% parliamentary seats and 31% local council seats. Everywhere else the figures cannot belie the fact that women have come a long way. But feminists insist that the ‘women’s question’ had not yet been answered and there are still gender role constraints and structural bias against women. In many Arab countries, women still lack elementary rights. In Iran, women are still under strict orders to wear the ‘uador’ or veil. Without it, she is “half-naked (i.e. unveiled) and “the woman parading in the streets …is sexually licentious, an easy prey, open to 7 penetration” (Paidar 1995, p.1). In India, although the dowry had been banned by law, still it persists .More and more bridegrooms are demanding huge dowries” and “young wives die at the rate of one day from suspicious kitchen fires or suicide” and these greedy grooms “marry again and gain another dowry” (Hodgson 1985,p.531). In other countries, women are not even allowed to choose whom to marry. Then, the Catholic Church’s stand against contraception, abortion, divorce and gay liberation as well as the severity of attitude against women by Islamic fundamentalism complicate the women’s struggle for equality and liberation. To reiterate, patriarchy is the root cause and the major cause of women’s sorry situation since the beginning of time. Patriarchy is also the main cause of this ‘cold war’ between the sexes as the female of the species want to liberate herself from an unequal and repressive relationship with the male. The male himself, because of patriarchy and ‘his testosterone’ feels compelled to dominate the ‘inferior sex’. We also reiterate that the reason that women are mere ‘second-class citizens’ is because patriarchy, gender relations, certain customs and traditions , through usage and tacit agreement have become socially constructed and are now so deeply rooted that it is so tough to get rid of. And lastly, that women have by leaps and bounds, improved their lot but according to feminists, they are still far from equalising things with men. REFERENCES 8 Berger, Peter and Luckmann, Thomas (1967), The social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge. (1st ed) Anchor Books, p.219. Clarkson, Shannon (2000) Conflict and community in the Corinthian Church, The United Methodist Church, qbgm.umc.org/umw/Corinthians/glossary.stm. Cruse, Markus and Hoogenboom, Hilde (2006) The memoirs of Catherine the Great, Modern Library. Daly, Mary (1978) Gyn/Ecology:the metaethics of traditional feminism, Beacon Press, Boston Drislane, Robert and Parkinson, Gary (2005) Patriarchy. Bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl. De Beauvoir, Simone. Woman: Myth and Reality. www.megaessay.com/viewpaper/9013.html Filmer, Robert (1680) Patriarcha. www.answers.com/topic/patriarchy. Goldberg, Steven (1973) The Inevitability of Patriarchy, William Morrow & Co., p.196. Grollier Universal Encyclopedia (2003) Cleopatra . Vol. 5, p. 141. Hodgson, Bryan (1985) Mirror of India, National Geographic, p.531. Hutchinson Encyclopedia . Related Customs. Encyclopedia.farlex.com/patrimonalism. Lewis, Jone Johnson (2008) Women prime ministers and presidents: 20th century, Your Guide To Women’s History. Mies, Maria (1998) Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, Palgrave Macmillan. Pollitt, Katha (2001) Subject To Debate. www.thenation.com/directory/bios/katha-pollitt. Pinker, Steven (2002) The Blank Slate: A Modern Denial of Human Nature. London,.Penguin Books, p.202. The Student Bible (2003) Genesis 1:18-23, Zondervan Publishing House,Grand Rapids,Mich. Walby, Sylvia (1989) Theorising Patriarchy. Soc.sagebush.com/cgi/content/abstract. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Feminist Criticism. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/feminist-criticism Read More